Google Cloud Computing

Mr Google, spoke about the coming shift to "cloud computing" where users will store their files and applications online instead of on their local computers and hard drives.

Dr Schmidt has described the cloud concept as akin to having banks manage your money rather than you manage your money.

"What we're going to do is we're just going to put the intelligence and the data and so forth on servers run by professionals - also known as us - so that you don't need to spend the weekend
debugging your computers at home," he said yesterday.

Dr Schmidt admitted, however, that his predictions have not always been on the money.

In October 2000, he made a bad really bad call that could have cost him dearly.

"Nobody really gives a sh-- about search," he told John Doerr, a venture capitalist who was trying to talk him in to taking a management position at Google.

Dr Schmidt, who was then head of software company Novell, later changed his mind and the following year was appointed chairman then CEO of the fledgling internet search company.

He went on receive stock options that made him a billionaire after Google floated in 2004.

Last month, Forbes magazine listed him as the 48th richest person in the US with a net worth of $US6.6 billion ($7.1 billion).

For the past seven years Dr Schmidt, along with Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, has been part of the triumvirate running an operation that has developed a reputation for being one
the world's most admired companies.

These days he has no such misgivings about search.

Last year, between 97 to 98 per cent of the company's revenues of $US16.6 billion were derived from little text advertisements that are largely served up in searches.

"I've made many mistakes," Dr Schmidt said yesterday when reminded about the anecdote from eight years ago and recounted in David Vise's book The Google Story.

"That was a big one. You learn from your mistakes. I'm more careful now to get my facts straight."

Earlier Press Release >>>

Google doesn't acknowledge the existence of such a service. In an official statement, the company says, "Storage is an important component of making Web apps fit easily into consumers' and
business users' lives ...

We're always listening to our users and looking for ways to update and improve our Web applications, including storage options, but we don't have anything to announce right now." Even so, many
people in the industry believe that Google will pull together its disparate cloud-computing offerings under a larger umbrella service, and people are eager to understand the consequences of such a
project.